A jury cleared me, but I’m still a prisoner of the past

Oct 25 2009 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

SHE spent three years behind bars for a crime she didn’t commit before finally being released.

Yet Suzanne Holdsworth is now a prisoner of the past, a virtual recluse who is unable to savour her freedom.

Suzanne was jailed for life in 2005 after being convicted of killing Kyle Fisher by banging his head against a banister at her home in Hartlepool, while babysitting for his mum Clare, who was on a night out.

Her partner Lee Spencer battled to clear her name, after unearthing medical evidence that showed Kyle suffered from a combination of brain disorders.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction, and she was cleared at a re-trial last December after new medical evidence suggested Kyle died after suffering from an epileptic fit . . . which Suzanne had told police all along.

Despite being free, the 38-year-old has been left severely traumatised by her wrongful conviction and three years of imprisonment.

She tells of her devastating experience in a revealing interview for BBC’s Inside Out, when presenter Chris Jackson journeys to East Yorkshire, where she now lives.

And the mum-of-two also reveals why she attempted suicide while in prison.

She said: “It wasn’t because people said I was guilty . . . it was the kids. Every day your kids come to visit you and it was brilliant.

“But when they walk away it’s a false smile, a false wave and you can see the hurt inside them.

“I thought, if I end my own life they wouldn’t be upset every day.”

Suzanne often stays inside the house all day, wearing pyjamas and a fleece dressing gown, which she even wears down the supermarket and to her friends’ houses.